where orders emerge

Quotation of the Day…

… is from pages 325-326 of of Vol. 19 (Ideas, Persons, and Events[2001]) of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan; specifically, it’s from Jim’s 1986 article “Ideas, Institutions, and Political Economy” – an article in which Jim spells out a wise case for abolishing the Council of Economic Advisors:

The whole Keynesian edifice was constructed on the preposterous supposition that economic advice is offered to a genuinely benevolent despot, an entity devoid of its own interests, and presumably willing and able to implement, without resistance, the advice offered to it. The early monetarist challenge was directed to the Keynesian analysis and, in itself, did not question the implicit political supposition….